One of my birthday present from my loving family was a recipe book for cooking with quark - an essential ingredient in the cuisine of dairy nations. The result of my first trial was a gratin of cheese gnocchi, a delicious dairy bomb!
Mix 3 egg yolks with 250 quark (use ricotta if quark is not an option).

Add 80g parmesan, a pinch of salt, Piment d'Espelette (I got for Christmas and fell in love with - it goes everywhere now) and grated nutmeg, then stir in 70g plain flour and 60g semolina. Fold in three beaten egg whites. Let the dough set for a while.
Then make gnocchi with two spoons - easy - and put them in simmering water until they rise up - about five minutes.
Then fish them out and arrange in a gratin dish. I laid them in a bed of lightly fried leek, because it seemed like a good idea (and it was!)
Grate about 200g cheese over it - cheddar will do - and bake until brown.
I personally would eat this with a tomato salsa, or a tomato salad. We only had ketchup, and it still tasted DIVINE. Possibly not the lightest meal ever eaten, but could turn out to be the ideal hangover brunch!
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Christmas - New Year - Birthday! that's how my old year ended and my new year begins. After all the celebrating, a bit of banal everyday is almost welcome. I would like to say here that my celebrations were virtually alcohol-free - I seem to be surrounded by non-drinkers these days! and I started 2012 without the shadow of a hangover. I think my next New Year will be a bit wilder, as I intend to spend it in England, where I heard reports that my friends had drunk 25 bottles between 7 people over two nights...and they are all about my age...I feel slightly out of practice.

Dear Ilse, happy birthday! I just wish I could be as fit and as lovely as you are when I come to be 64 (and if!)I made something similar for my blog last year. I chose to roll them in buttered breadcrumbs instead of baking them covered with cheese, but it's probably just as fattening, if not more.Have a great year!